varieties of healing in present-day japan

Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 1995 22/3-4

Varieties of Healing in Present-Day Japan

Y u m iy a m a Tatsuya

弓山達也

In the 1990，s healing has become a keyword in fields as various as religion, medicine, and art. There have been few efforts, however, to elucidate either the social background or common conceptions of this term. In this article healing is understood as an activity of holistic recovery, and an exploration is made of its social background and spread in the youth culture of contemporary Japan. Although healing takes many forms in this subculture, fundamentally it is oriented towards harmony with others and with nature. Broad interest in healing began in the 1970s, increased through the popularization of New Age thought in the late 1980s, and became a fixture in the 1990s. As the social background to this process, on the individual level we can identify a reaction aminst the separation of body and spirit in modern society and a protest against the attenuation of human relationships. On a wider social level, increased interest in environmental concerns has contributed to the current interest in healing.

In r e c e n t years healing has come into its own in Japan. Articles on the

topic enliven the pasres of academic journals, books on it line the

shelves of shops, special features on it figure prominently in maga

zines and on television, and workshops and seminars on it compete

for clients, similar developments have, of course, been seen in the

New Aee movements of all the advanced nations.

Still, there has yet to emerge any consensus on what exactly “healing”

is. How, for example, does it differ from what religion calls “salvation”

or medicine calls a “cure”？ There are no easy academic definitions of

healing, involving as it does a host or issues straddling the disciplines

* The present essay represents part of a research project conducted at the Seikei

University Center for Asian Pacific Studies from 1992 to 1993. The introduction to the fuller

report (1995) contains further details concerning the division of labor among the authors

(A raya Shigehiko, Shimazono Susumu, Tanabe Shin taro, and myself). I would like here to

express my appreciation to the other authors. This article was translated from the Japanese

bv James Heisig.

268 Japanese Journal o f Religious Studies 2 2 /3 -4

of religious studies, psychology, medicine, and anthropology. With

this in mind，I will start with a consideration of healing in religion and

medicine, the two areas with which it has traditionally been most

closely associated; on this basis, I will then examine the extent of

interest in healing and healing movements in present-day Japan. In

the process we will probe the directions that healing has taken among

the nation’s “New Agers，，，particularly the young. At the same time,

since a concern with healing is not limited to young people, I will

examine the wider social background of the present interest in this

subject.

Clarifying the Meaning of Healing

SALVATION: THE RELIG IOUS D IM ENSION OF HEALING

Healing, needless to say, is one of the central concerns of religion. In

Japan it is commonplace for new religious groups to place a strong

emphasis on healing experiences as they build their membership and

then, as they become increasingly established, to turn to the intellec

tual refinement 01 their teachings and doctrine. Tenrikyo is a case in

point. One of the largest of the pre—World War II New Religions,

Tenrikyo in its early years attracted new believers primarily through its

reputation for curing sickness, but with growing social acceptance it

gradually moved this rather unsophisticated element into the back

ground and shifted its interests to the construction of modern hospitals

and schools. The same sort of move from a stress on curing sickness to

an outlook more in line with secular values can also be seen in such

representative postwar New Religions as Soka Gakkai and Rissho

Koseikai.1

The tendency in these religious movements has been to avoid the

word healing, as the term suggests the use of a provisional hoben 方便

(expedient means); in most cases the words sukui 救い or kyusai 救済，

both meaning “salvation，，，are preferred, even when the curing of sick

ness is involved. Generally speaking, salvation suggests, to a greater

extent than healing' does, that the approach involved is an intellectual

one based on doctrinal grounds. For example, when one talks, not of

healing a person, but of saving a person through the action of com

passion or charity, there is in the statement a certain nuance of doctri

1 The same holds true of Christianity in the United States, as in the evangelical and pen-

tecostal movements of the last two centuries. The sects may retain as an article of faith their

early belief in the Holy Spirit’s gift of divine healing, but as their financial condition

improves the em phasis shifts to the doctrines o f fa ith , a nd com prom ises w ith m ode rn m ed i

cine are m ade (H arrell 1988).

Yum iyam a： Varieties of Healing in Present-Day Japan 269

nal profundity. The effects of the cure may be the same, but calling it

healing suggests a limited，one-time remedy, while calling it salvation

introduces a universal element that connects it with the existential suf

ferings shared by all human beings. Thus religions often stress that

the provisional cures effected by healing are but the entranceway to

the profounder succor offered by true salvation.

If we look deeper，however, we see that such “provisional cures”

actually go far beyond the mere treatment of disease. This is because

the suffering of the sick is not simply physical but always involves a

psychological element, a perceived lack of meaning that expresses

itself in such thoughts as, “Why is it me who gets sick?” or “Why now,

of all times?” The same can be said of other forms of what might be

called “worldly” suffering. Thus the complaint, “I work so hard, why

am I still so poor?” does not emerge from actual poverty so much as

from a sense that what one is doing lacks meaning.

As Max Weber pointed out in the 1920s，religions have always

attempted to provide a plausible intellectual rationale for such “mean-

ingless suffering，，，one example being the Indian theory of karma.

Ih is can be seen as part of their intellectually based soteriological

function. But healing cannot be grasped by intellectual means alone.

When people experience the fact of healing they often tremble with

emotion, weep, or fina themselves at a loss for words. The cure mani

fests itself as a reality possessed of its own significance; healing, in a

broad sense, affects the entire being of the one who is cured. If one

insists upon distinguishing healing and salvation, one might say that

healing involves an experiential, physical comprehension of the

meaning of life，while salvation involves an intellect insight into that

meaning (though, of course, at the moment of salvation no such

artificial distinctions are possible).

Thus religious people speak not only of diseases that are cured

through faith but of diseases that, uncured, occasion the realization of

the true meaning of life or the perception of erroneous ways of

thought. Such experiences may be rooted in any number of beliefs,

including those that see all illness as karmic in origin or that preach

the grateful acceptance of all that befalls one. Such beliefs change

one’s perception of reality, imparting meaning to a pain-filled uni

verse that earlier seemed utterly devoid of unifying significance. It is

this new perception that opens the forces of healing. The role of the

doctrinal teachings of religion in the formation of such beliefs—and

in the concomitant creation of a new meaning system—is too obvious

to need mentioning. But this is not all. salvation occurs precisely

because one has experienced a healing that picks up the scattered


fragments of a life and shapes them again into a single story, filling up

the void left by meaninglessness.2

HEALING AND MEDICINE

So far we have spoken of healing in the context of religion, but it

should be remembered that the establishment of modern medicine

deprived a wider range of traditional healing methods of their legiti

macy and stigmatized them as forms of quackery. From the late Meiji

to the Taisho period, the healing techniques practiced among the

Japanese came to be distinguished from modern medicine as “healing

arts，，，and at times their practice was controlled. These healing arts

were influenced by the techniques of homeopathy, chiropractic, and

osteopathy developed in the West during the nineteenth-century

(Imura 1984). In both Japan and the United States, orthodox medi

cine viewed these healing practices as heretical or as, at best, of ancil

lary importance.

There is no gainsaying the tremendous debt that humanity owes to

modern medicine. It has been particularly effective in curing diseases

caused by specific pathogens, diseases such as cholera, tuberculosis,

and smallpox. These once dreaded sicknesses can now be cured, and

in countries like Japan are rarely fatal.3

At the same time，however, there has of late been a call for a second

look at the ruling medical orthodoxy. Questions are being raised

about the rising costs that have accompanied the advance in medical

technology, about the passive acquiescence to treatment required of

patients，and even about the underlying philosophy of modern medi

cine with its mechanistic view of the human organism. Unorthodox

healing practices and Eastern medicine, which have so far been rele

gated to the status of “alternative medicine,” are now being seriously

reconsidered.

The leading causes of death have been changing; Japan now resem

bles the nations of the West in that the three major causes of death

are malignant tumors, cardiovascular disease, and cerebral hemor

rhage. As Carl Becker (1993) has pointed out, these diseases are not

2 Why should this experience of healing then be accorded a lower position than salva

tion? The reason is that the experience o f hea ling is som eth ing that happens directly in the

body and psyche of the individual and is therefore hard to communicate to others.

Communication requires a certain intellectual processing. Thus discussions of religious

experience focus less on the emotions felt during the experience of healing than on talk of

“salvation” in accordance with doctrine. Thus a description of healing experience has, by

the time it reaches our ears, become a story of “salvation.” This may explain why healing has

been overlooked in comparison with salvation.

3 The 1992 death rate for tuberculosis in Japan is a very low 2.7 per 100,000. Cholera and

sm allpox rates are also stable ffigures taken from K osei T okei Kyoka i, 1994).


caused by pathogens like bacteria and viruses, but by the very lifestyle

of today’s men and women. These illnesses have brought home to us

the fact that modern medicine is not omnipotent, and have stimulat

ed the investigation of other medical traditions. The present interest

in holistic medicine, with its stress on totality and the healing powers

of nature, may also be seen in this context.

For example, it is said that adult illnesses like hypertension, dia

betes, and cirrhosis, as well as contemporary adolescent psychological

maladies like the refusal to attend school and the three “no，s” (no

energy, no interest, no responsibility), are symptomatic of a rift

between understanding and sensation, and of a lowering of our aware

ness of and response to the signals that the body gives off in order to

maintain a healthful balance. Ikemi (1986) calls this “the loss-of-bodily-

sensation syndrome.” Illnesses provoked by this separation of body

and mind require not only physical treatment but long-term spiritual

care as well. Thus the treatment of diabetes requires not only insulin

shots, dietary control，and lowered stress, but also an improved atti

tude towards work, family, and life itself. In short, what is being called

for is a shift away from a purely mechanistic view of the human person

towards a holistic view of our physical and psychological aspects.

Interest in this holistic view of the human goes hand in hand with

the “rehabilitation” of healing. As the etymological connections

between the words healing，health, holiness, and hale suggest, there is a

connection between health and the spiritual. But again, the spiritual

aspect alone is not enough: healing is cognate with whole, both deriving

from holos (as A ltenberg points out, holistic can be written wholistic [1992] )，suggesting that the religious cure of illness must be augmented

by a holistic treatment of the entire human individual. The Japanese

Holistic Medicine Association takes a broad view of healing in its

explanation of holistic medicine, stressing that it is based on the heal

ing power of nature, with the patient basically curing him- or herself

and the therapist playing an auxiliary role only. Ikemi’s “total health”

and Noguchi’s “total life ，，4 both point to this radical restoration of the

human that includes the totality of body and mind.

THE DIVERSITY OF HEALING

So far I have discussed healing in terms of its differences with salva

tion and cure, something that, I hope, has brought the outlines of

4 N o g u ch i Haruchika, founder of the Seitai Association, which promotes ki energy thera

py, says that the concept of “total life” implies a perfection of life (1976). One can discern in

his o u tlo o k a certa in ho lis tic way o f th in k in g , stressing as it does the h e a lin g pow er o f

nature, the harmony of body and mind, and the response of the soul to ki energy.


healing into a bit clearer relief. To the extent that healing refers to

the treatment of the individual as a whole, it embraces both salvation

and cure. More narrowly defined，however, healing and salvation can

be differentiated: healing addresses the problem of meaninglessness

in a direct and concrete way so that the individual actually feels the

significance of life，whereas salvation addresses the same problem

from a more intellectual standpoint. Moreover, healing implies a more

holistic approach than that of modern medicine’s “cure.” In summary,

we might say that salvation addresses the intellectual-spiritual side and

curing addresses the physical side; while healing, with its view of the

human individual as a single whole, appeals to body and spirit alike.

Naturally, the orientation of healing to wholeness is not something

that can be achieved at the level of the individual alone. Andrew Weil

speaks of a continual movement to maintain balance even in outer

space and the natural environment, a movement that he refers to as a

form of healing in the sense that it restores totality.5 Similarly, reli

gious groups work to preserve harmony in society and the environ

ment, compensating for the contradictions and shortcomings of the

existing social system and the devastation of the natural world, and

thereby attempt to restore society and nature to their rightful, original

form. Robert K is a la speaks of this as a “social healing” (1995). To take

humanity as a whole is to include the whole of the social environment

that envelops us; the healing of humanity thus involves the harmony

of society and nature.

Healing in Youth Culture

THE MANY FACES OF THE HEALIN G FAD

In Japan, interest in the practices and ideas associated with healing

dates back to the late 1970s. Still, the term healing (in Japanese, iyashi

癒し）remained relatively unknown outside of religious and New Age

movements until the collapse of the “bubble economy” in the early

1990s.6 I will return to the relevance of this later，but suffice it to note

here that concern with healine has erown steadily until it has now

become a subject of everyday discourse. This is particularly noticeable

in the case of youth culture.

The year 1994 saw a number of magazines devoting special issues to

J W e il (1983) views as a fo rm o f h ea ling the centuries-long process o f m o u n ta in surfaces

recovering- fro m h u m a n deve lopm ent, a n d the ongoing- cycle o f stars ex p lod ing , m atter

b e in g scattered th ro u g h space, tranqu ility a n d ba lance b e ing restored, a n d new m atte r

be ing created th rough fusion.

6 The bubb le econom y was the overheated Japanese econom y o f 1986 to 1990, character

ized by w ildly in fla ted real estate a nd stock prices.


the topic of healing. For instance, in November of that year SPA!, a

magazine popular among young businessmen and known for promot

ing counter-cultural topics, put together an issue that introduced such

things as “dolphin-healing” (therapeutic swimming with dolphins),

music healing, healing goods, and paranormal powers. The idea

behind the special issue was to clarify, in a rather critical fashion, what

it called “the mysterious rise in the number of young people seeking

an easy way to ‘save their souls，.，，Another example was the October

1994 issue of the literary monthly Hato yo! (a journal targeting people

in their twenties and thirties). The issue was given over to “Healing

the Heart” and discussed “Seven Ways to Health”： dolphins, palmistry,

seitai 整体 therapy, yoga, karaoke, sex, and books.

We may also mention the 22 April 1994 issue of the woman’s maga

zine anan, which targets female university students and pink-collar

workers. Entitled “More about Those Wonderful Powers and Phenom

ena Everybody Is Talking A bout，，，it dealt with such topics as seances,

channeling, former-life readings, ki energy, spells, and “hand power.”

The 3 September issue of the women’s fashion magazine Olive was a

special titled “Ih e Unseen World: An Introduction to Mysterious

Powers” that pursued the issue of “invisible powers” in articles on Sai

Baba，ki energy, meditation, spiritual therapy, and so on.

This same trend is seen in the bookshops. A browse around the psy

chology and relieion/spirituality sections of the laree bookstores

reveals a large amount of material on healing.7 In April 1994，Seibu

Libro，one of Tokyo’s leading book stores, set up a special display

called “Self-Healing,” which featured not only published materials on

the subject but special healing crystals and relaxation tapes and CDs.

The invariable inclusion of “dolphin healing” in this context is of par

ticular interest.8 Bookstores catering to the young now provide a sec

7 The same trend is seen in recent novels. All three parts of Nobel Prize winner Oe

K enzaburo5s most recent novel, Moeagaru midori no ki 燃えあ力《る緑の木 [The b u rn in g bush],

tocus on healing. Ana m his acceptance speech in December 1994 he concluded by taking-

upon himself mankind’s ghastly deeds during the twentieth century and reiterating his

hope, and conviction, for the possibility of healing and reconciliation for the entire human

race. Again, the best-selling novelist Yoshimoto Banana, who enjoys great popularity among

the younger generation, deals in her novel Amrta with the mystical experience of a young

ffirl who loses her memory. Yoshimoto’s own experiences in channeling and meditating in

an isolation tank have been reported on in a women’s magazine.

8 The stimulus for the “dolphin boom” in Japan was the 1992 release of Luc Besson’s

nlm Grande Bleu, the story or Jacques Mayol, world-record holder for diving without equip

ment and a pioneer in communicating with dolphins. Mayol himself has often visited Japan,

where he is active on the speech and symposium circuit. John C. Lilly and Horace Dobbs,

whose research on communication between dolphins and humans has been translated into

Japanese, took part in an international congress on dolphins and whales held at Enoshima,

Japan, that was attended by five hundred people.


tion on dolphins with photo collections and accounts of healings

achieved through communication with dolphins. Dolphins are also

much in evidence in healing music, workshops, and healing goods.

Interest in healing extends beyond the written word. New Age

music and healing music have established themselves as new genres.

Healing music, generally Western in nature, includes arrangements of

Gregorian chant as well as recordings of dolphin voices, of children at

play, and of the sound of ocean waves. The music of Oe Hikaru, eldest

son of the Nobel Prize-winning novelist, is one of the relatively few

applications of traditional Japanese music to healing. All or these

musical forms have been widely used to create a meditative and relax

ing mood in stressful environments like offices and hospitals.

Workshops on healing are now common in Japan. The workshops

reported on in New Age magazines like FILI and Tama tend to employ

a combination of breathing techniques and bodywork, but others

offer yoga, hypnosis therapy, Qigong, reiki, and aroma therapy.

Healing workshops have also been sponsored by the organizations

that run self-development seminars.9 The travel industry, too, has got

ten involved. Special healing tours are now available to Tenkawa,

Kumano, and Yakushima (reputed to be areas of high spiritual ener

gy) ，to Hawaii and the Bahamas for swimming with wild dolphins, and

to the ashram of Sai Baba.

No consideration of the healing fad would be complete without ref

erence to the “healing eoods” (crystals, moonstones, lapis lazuli, etc.)

referred to in passing above. We turn to these next.

THINGS INFUSED W ITH HEALING POWERS

Goods believed to be specially empowered for healing are available in

the New Age shops that have cropped up all over Japan in recent

years. Formerly these shops were known，not without a touch of scorn,

as “occult shops，，，but as goods related to healing have taken over they

have in many cases come to be called “healing shops.”

For example, Rhodanthe, a shop in the Koganei area of Tokyo

famous in New Age circles, sells crystals, stones, incense, oils, herbs,

meditation CDs, and books on divination, magic, paranormal powers,

and the occult, with the claim that its wares promote “meditation，

environmental purification, relaxation, healing, and the fulfillment of

one’s desires.” There is on the precincts a six-foot pyramid with a bed

inside for resting. A chain of eight shops by the name Triangle, cen

tered in the Fukuoka area, offers similar goods and provides a resi

dent tarot-card reader in the back. A twelve-shop chain known as The

9 On self-development seminars see the article by Haga Minoru in this issue, pp. 283-99.


Nature Company supplies trinkets with plant and animal motifs, T-

shirts, stones, model dinosaurs, petrified wood, and the like. It also

carries outdoor goods like telescopes，army knives, related books and

videos, and imported healing-music CDs. Though the orientation to

nature is strong, a sign in the store makes it clear that no wildlife

products are sold: no mounted animals, furs, butterfly specimens, or

seashells. The text reads: “We sincerely hope that the goods we sell,

and the creative powers and experiences that grow from them, will

awaken your curiosity in things unknown, enrich your spirit, and

increase your sense of empathy with the earth on which we live.”

The Rhodanthe shop in Tokyo is a New Age shop, while the Triangle

chain characterizes itself as a dealer in magic goods and divination.

What first strikes one about these shops, and the Nature Company

outlets as well, are the crystals and other stones. Considerable space is

devoted to displaying a variety of pendants with giant crystals and

unpolished stones, plus leather pouches containing stones. Prices

range from a few hundred to over one million yen. Cosmo-Space, a

store located in Tokyo’s Harajuku that specializes in stones, sold some

330,000 pieces in 1992 alone via mail order and department store

sales. Purchasers are mainly schoolgirls and women in their twenties.

According to the shop’s president, the crystal fad began with grape

vine reports on “the mysterious powers of the crystal,” mainly among

junior high school girls interested in divination and charms (Asahi

shinbun, 23 January 1993，evening edition).

Those who buy the stones claim that having a stone that suits one—

for not all stones do—brings a feeling of composure, energizes the

body, helps fulfill dreams, and unleashes subliminal powers. Belief in

crystals is particularly strong in New Age circles, where it is felt that

keeping a crystal on one’s person will bring happiness, that holding

one during sleep will excite the creative powers of the unconscious,

that setting one in the house will promote family harmony, and that

burying one in the ground will give plants new life.

Several years ago foreign books expounding the healing powers of

crystals were introduced to Japan, and knowledge spread about the

use of crystals in conjunction with the chakra (sometimes using differ

ent types of crystals with each chakra). Many of those who use these

stones claim that the aim is for peace of mind and body, though, they

say, some attempt to use them for magical purposes.

THE POW ER OF CHARMS

Stones, and particularly crystals, have gained a rather wide popularity

among women，including primary and secondary school girls. Among


teenagers of about fifteen the healing goods referred to above are

known as “omajinai goods” and are quite widely owned. The Japanese

term omajinai carries a connotation of charms, magic, the occult,

exorcism，spells, and so forth. The popularity of these goods is related

not only to present-day developments in New Age thought but also to

traditions of Japanese popular religiosity and religious magic dating

back to ancient times.

The popularity of charms was given a boost by monthly magazines

like My Birthday, a teen-market fortune-telling journal which, picking

up on the reader interest in charms, popularized and promoted these

objects. In the process it started giving away free omajinai goods to its

readers, and eventually opened a speciality shop called The House of

Little Witches in the basement of its editorial offices. According to a

sales source, one of the shop’s best sellers is a small bottle filled with

lapis lazuli powder that changes color as water is added, bringing, it is

said, good luck. Other popular items are tarot cards, objects with a

Star-of-David pattern，and pendants inscribed with the letters t r a p s ,

from a magic square used in Europe.

The shop, frequented by primary and junior high school girls,

prices its goods reasonably, from several hundred to several thousand

yen. The girls’ interests are focused for the main part on human rela

tions, like romance and friendship. We see this, for example, in The

Definitive Book on Charms by Mark Yazaki (a researcher on charms who

plays an advisory role for My Birthday). The book devotes fourteen of

its twenty-six chapters to romance and four more to friendship, family,

and human relationships. Two sections each are given to charms for

succeeding in study, examinations, and sports; for attainine good for

tune and happiness; and for increasing beauty and health. One sec

tion deals with increasing one’s enjoyment of work，and another with

self-improvement.

THE ORIENTATION TO HARM ONY

The New Age customers of shops like Rhodanthe appear to have little

interest in using omajinai goods for the realization of their personal

desires. Their concern seems to lie, rather, in achieving intimacy with

and absorption into the natural world through the medium of the var

ious goods sold. Thus we see that the same objects—crystals for exam

ple—are used for quite different purposes by different people. Some

see them as a means to influence destiny and the course of human

relationships, while others see them as a means to approach nature.

Yet even in the latter case we should remember that the version of

“nature” being approached is largely an artificial human construct.


As any number of commentators have pointed out, there is a funda

mental gap between animals and human beings: animals instinctively

conform with nature, while humans, utilizing culture, attempt to

reshape nature. Yet this effort, once initiated, has no end: no artificial

environment, however developed, can ever match the provident embrace

of nature, and no man-made surroundings, no matter how pleasur

able, will ever truly satisfy the demands of human desire. A longing is

thus born for the state prior to our confrontation with nature, a state

of repose in Mother Nature’s bosom. When nature touches the

human person, there is a feeling of restfulness beyond the power of

words to tell. As soon as we return to everyday life, however, we realize

how hopelessly distant we are from this experience. Just as animals

cannot retrace their steps on the evolutionary path, human beings,

once possessed of culture, cannot return to a state of unity with

nature. In such conditions, all human beings can do is utilize the cul

ture they have acquired to forge an artificial “nature” and there make

a comfortable place for themselves. Goods sold at New Age shops aim

at just this. What CDs, videos, and trinkets displaying plants and ani

mals produce is not, of course, nature. And yet somehow through

them people are able to feel nature.

Just why do people seek out nature like this? Simply put, the reason

lies in a desire for the peace that comes with harmony. As isolated as

we may have become from the world of nature, there is not one of us

who does not seek a state of natural harmony. Put the other way

around, as comfortable as our human environment may be, we cannot

accept the tension and pressure that go with it. Goods in New Age

shops in the shape of plants and animals provide a quick and easy nat

ural ambience. The same can be said of interest in dolphins. Even

though dolphins are animals, there is a belief in—and a desire for—

their ability to communicate with us. Stories of human communica

tion with dolphins go back to Mediterranean myths, and often appear

in movies, novels, and animated cartoons. Dolphins are seen as a con

nector between the human world and the world of nature, and a

medium for achieving a state of restfulness.

Similarly, it is undoubtedly the association of crystals and other

stones with the earth that gave rise to the belief in their ability to cre

ate peace of mind. They are seen as a harmonizing force, and thus as

a way to attain a sense of relaxation and togetherness. In the case of

other charms as well，what the young girls who use them are most

interested in are human relationships~what they seek is true harmony

with friends, parents, and boyfriends, and the peace that this brings in

the form of companionship, understanding, and love. These are


things that nature alone cannot provide. The girls seem to be seeking

an escape not only from the competitive pressures of school examina

tions and job-seeking but from the indifference to others that marks

the modern world.

Thus, whether it be plant and animal trinkets or crystals and other

charms, the belief is that such things bring the peace of mind associated

with a state of harmony. The “healing shops” that have sprung up of

late cater to this need for a place that offers relaxation, good feeling,

and good humor. Earlier we spoke of healing as related to the human

person as a whole, body and spirit together, and we stressed the neces

sity of this for attaining harmony with society and nature. The healing

being sought in youth culture also seems to be characterized as a har

mony with nature, a harmony with others, and the peace of mind that

comes with such harmony.

The Spread of Healing and Its Background

THE SPREAD OF HEALING

The orientation to healing is not restricted to youth culture—the con

cept is also becoming a byword in the fields of medicine, economics,

and the arts. A number of hospitals, though they are still few, have

begun to use ki energy and Eastern medicine, and there are reports of

success in treating terminal cancer and chronic disorders. There are

also facilities advertising healing with dolphins, health foods, and

meditation.

For example, the Hodaka Health Park, a kind of holistic health

center in Hodaka-cho, Nagano Prefecture, was founded in 1986 by the

acupuncturist Fukuda Shunsaku, who practiced yoga in India and

underwent Shugendo training at Omine-san in Japan. Here the

patient’s natural healing powers are increased through yoga, hot-

spring therapy, a healthy diet centered on brown rice and vegetables,

and suitable exercise like hiking. The Akame Health Center was

founded in 1985 in Nabari-shi, Mie Prefecture, by Fukuoka Takaya, a

researcher in diabetes and Chinese herbal medicine. Diet and exer

cise therapy are practiced, and facilities are available for farming，rais

ing livestock, and producing art and pottery. The normal stay is one

month, and the total number of patients，mainly afflicted with auto

nomic ataxia, diabetes, and depression, is between fifty and seventy a

year. The basis of life in the center is a balanced diet of natural foods

free of all additives. Walks in the mountains are also encouraged.

But healing is not restricted to the infirm. Business enterprises have

begun to offer healing training，led by organizations set up for this


specific purpose. There are also entrepreneurs specializing in the

short-term rental of pets to lighten the mood of the workplace (for

which Japanese have coined the English phrase, “companion ani

mals,5). In all of these cases, healing is needed to harmonize human

relationships in work environments prone to stress.

As mentioned above, the subject of healing first attracted attention

in the 1970s，but did not become widely known, as far as I have been

able to determine，until the 1990s. The spread of knowledge about

healing was stimulated by three things. First, the 1973 oil shock under

mined Japan5s faith in economic progress and opened the possibility

for lifestyles other than those devoted to mass production and con

sumerism. Slogans such as “Let’s take it easy, you and I，，，and “A good

life rather than a frenetic one” captured the mood in the late 1970s.

Despite their counter-cultural flavor, such things as folk medicine and

chemical-free farming began to attract attention from about this time.

The second step, I believe, was the spread of New Age thought in

Japan that started with the 1986 Japanese translation of Shirley

MacLaine’s Out on a Limb. This was fostered by the prevailing mood

during the bubble economy of the late 1980s，a time of unprecedented

prosperity, but one during which people first started discussing shorter

hours, greater elbowroom，and death by overwork, reflecting the

need for physical and mental peace. Then the bubble burst, leading

to an immediate rise of concern with healing. More people stopped

name-brand buying sprees abroad and started to reorient themselves

to spiritual rather than material goods, to inner rather than outer

wealth. All of this was expressed in the single word healing. In this

sense, the collapse of the bubble economy represents the third factor

in the spread of the techniques and ideas of healing.10

THE BACKGROUND TO THE HEALING FAD

So far we have characterized the nature of healing in terms of har

mony and totality and had a look at its spread. But the question

remains as to why healing is receiving so much attention today. In

reply, and by way of conclusion, I would like to consider three aspects

of this question: the individual, the interpersonal，and the social.

On the individual level we have the problem of mind and body.

Given, on the one hand, modern medicine’s view of the body as a

10 N ishiyama Shigeru (1988) notes the swell of interest in mysticism and magic that fo l

lowed the M eiji governm en t’s policy o f “increased p ro duc tio n th rough in dus try ~ na tio n a l

wealth and military s treng thand the postwar government’s drive for rapid economic

growth. Nishiyama5s ideas are supported by the increased interest in healing after the col

lapse of the bubble economy, if one includes healing in the realm of magic and mysticism.


machine, and，on the other, modern education’s utter lack of atten

tion to physical concerns, people today find a dualistic view of body

and mind being forced upon them. The body is severed and tossed

aside. The senses that vitalize the physical being are deprived. In reac

tion to this “shutting out” of the body, things that stress the bonds

between mind and bodyyoga, meditation，and the martial arts—are

attracting attention. As this tendency grows stronger, it in turn pro

vides a context for a heightening of concern with healing methods

that stress harmony within oneself, with others, and with nature.

The impact of this on the world of religion is that attention has

shifted away from intellectual salvation based on doctrine, towards a

salvation grounded in a bodily “feeling” or “sensing” of the meaning

of life. This strong desire for bodily sensation supports the trend

towards healing. Many of the New Religions that have experienced

expansion since the 1970s have stressed what is “felt” in the course of

direct communication and dealing with spirits, whether this is by the

“contact with the spirit” (sesshin of Shinnyoen or the laying on of

hands in the Mahikari groups. Such elements cannot be discounted

when considering the background of the present fascination with

such things as charms and dolphin communication.

The interpersonal level is no less important here. As society grows

ever more competitive and information-intensive, human relations get

weaker and weaker. The freedom gained by breaking away from close-

knit human relationships is accompanied by a chronic sense of loneli

ness. Individualism is never without the danger of fostering selfishness

and indifference to others. The breakup of local communities has

long been deplored, but now people are also concerned with the

breakup of the family, as reflected in terms like “family violence” and

“in-house divorce” (in which husband and wife continue to live under

the same roof but are for all intents and purposes separated). The

core of the crisis of community is now being located in the disruption

of domestic unity. In this context healing is often spoken of in terms

of reconciliation. As the popularity of charms confirms, healing is

linked to harmony and the resulting sense of peace. Thus healing

workshops often promote an attitude of forgiveness and acceptance

through the use of psychotherapy. In terms of the interpersonal, then,

healing serves as a protest against the dilution of human relations.

In healing workshops much is made of “awareness” and “sharing.”

Through body work and meditation, one becomes aware of one’s pat

terns of thought and behavior, and recognizes the fact that one

belongs to a reality bigger than oneself. By putting this awareness into

practice and transmitting it to others it gradually becomes a common


possession through which reconciliation can be sought. The self that

was divided and withered is set loose to find freedom through an

organic interconnectedness with others.

The individual and interpersonal dimensions do not yet complete

the movement toward healing, however, but open it up to a third

level. As we noted earlier, the effort to return society and nature to

their original condition is also part of healing. Healing what is human

is inseparable from achieving harmony with society and nature. Thus

goods for sale in New Age shops are intended to enhance people’s

sense of nature, while initiatives to protect the environment, which

first gained momentum during the 1970s，have now developed into

widespread grassroots movements throughout Japan. Issues like acid

rain and the destruction of the ozone layer have become major topics,

spurring a broadening of attention from local problems to global

environmental concerns. The Earth is now seen more as a single liv

ing organism (the L^aia hypothesis). The problem of healing can be

explained as part of this rising interest in ecology.

Another related phenomenon is the serious effort being directed

to stopping the unexpected explosion of ethnic conflict that has fol

lowed the end of the Cold War. This too may be seen as a form of

social healing. In this vein, the theme of the sixth meeting of the

World Conference on Religion and Peace held in Italy in November

1994 was “Healing the World: Religions for Peace.”

Considered in these terms, the objects of healing are both far-

reaching and important，making it hard to pin down the nature of

healing with any clarity. This is all the more so given the nature of

healing as a form of salvation that works in the here and now, some

thing that makes it both highly individualistic and highly pluralistic.

But despite this ambiguity, as long as there are problems that need

healing the interest in this subject can only increase.

REFERENCES

A lte n b e r g , Henry Edward

1992 Holistic Medicine. Tokyo: Japan Publications Trading Co.

Araya Shigehiko 新屋重彦，Shimazono Susumu 島菌進，Tanabe Shintaro

田邊信太郎，and Yumiyama Tatsuya弓山達也

1995 Iyashi to 脚^似•癒しと和解. Tokyo: Habesutosha.

Becker, Carl

1993 Shukyoteki chiryo ga chojoteki kiseki o yobu toki 宗教的治療が

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Harrell, David Edwin, Jr.

1988 Divine healing in modern American Protestantism. In Other

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varieties of healing in present-day japan

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